


Sparks

by qwanderer



Series: I don't deserve you. [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: AU, Angst, Canon Divergence, First Time, Happy Ending, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Misunderstandings, Nightmares, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-18 13:56:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19335904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qwanderer/pseuds/qwanderer
Summary: It was the middle of the night, and Crowley liked to think that he wouldn't have let it happen under better circumstances, but really, he knew that was a lie.





	Sparks

**Author's Note:**

> I... have no idea where this came from tbh.

Crowley offered Aziraphale a place to stay after the world almost ended, because how could he not? After everything the Angel had given him. 

Zira, as far as Crowley knew, had not been in the habit of sleeping, but right now he very much looked as if he could use a good night’s rest. Crowley knew _he_ could. He beckoned the Angel to follow him. 

There was one bed, and they both collapsed into it, exhausted, without too much thought. 

Well, Crowley had a few muddled thoughts, as Aziraphale’s wing draped itself comfortably over Crowley’s already half-dozing form. 

Something along the lines of: Don't deserve him. Never deserve him. So gentle. So kind. So _good_. 

~~☄~~

Crowley had terrible, muddled nightmares. Falling, but worse than the falling, the burning. 

The pain as he breached the surface, as divinity was burned away, as the angelic flesh was undone, unformed, leaving other shapes, humble, unclean. 

He was remade molecule by molecule and it was that, more than the fire, that hurt. That burned. No longer Angel. Now something Else. 

There was also the Knowledge. 

The burning bright truth of what he had done wrong, when he’d gone along with the others even though he hadn’t really liked what they were about. When he’d fought Heaven, taken up arms, put his very essence on the line for a cause he had no passion for. When he hadn’t been true to himself. 

Himself. What was he now? Who was he? 

Slim, smooth, dark. Limbless. And he knew why, as part of the Knowledge. A shape to fit his lack of ambition to build, to touch, to interact, to care. A shape with no hands. 

~~☄~~

Crowley gasped, bolting upright in his bed. A nightmare. A memory. Long past. He gripped his upper arms tightly, just to remind himself that he was _here_ , that he was _now_ , that he could. 

Beside him, Zira shifted and rolled over, blinking blearily. “Crowley?” he asked. 

He couldn’t answer, so instead he hid his face, trying to pass this off as… something, something less than it was, anyway. 

“Crowley, what’s wrong?” 

Crowley didn’t have the energy to hide it, not after everything that had gone on yesterday, and he cursed himself for inviting Aziraphale here, tonight of all nights, but what else could he have done? 

“...fell,” he murmured, still not showing his face. 

“Oh,” Zira said softly. “A nightmare?” 

“A memory,” Crowley corrected. “A very old memory I should have done with already.” 

“Perhaps,” Aziraphale said hesitantly, “perhaps it would help to talk about it?” 

Slowly, Crowley began to uncurl. “We didn't know what we were,” he began, knowing he probably wasn’t making much sense. “Names had been stripped away. None of our shapes had names yet. That was Adam's job. The first Adam. And he hadn’t come along yet.” 

Zira’s hand was warm on his back, rubbing up and down through the thin black tee shirt he wore. The Angel didn’t speak. He simply listened. 

“We knew we weren’t anything nice. No more soft, warm feathers. Insects, reptiles, amphibians. Nothing warm blooded. Nothing soft. All scales, chitin, slime.” 

“I like your scales,” Zira offered softly, and then he was silent again. 

“We were lost. Lashed out at each other, confused and frightened.” Crowley took a shaky breath. “It took a long time before we managed to work out any kind of order, or really do anything but blindly fight.” 

Aziraphale’s hand continued to stroke. “That sounds awful,” he said. 

Crowley sniffed. “Yes. Well. It's done and over with. Back to sleep.” 

“My dear. You're still shaking.” 

The demon didn’t bother to deny it. 

“What can I do?” Zira asked. 

Crowley shook his head. He tried to tell Aziraphale to go back to sleep, but what came out was, “I don't deserve you. I really don't.” 

“Anything you need,” Zira insisted. “Anything.” 

Crowley flailed, trying to think what to ask for. At last he said, “Help me forget.” 

“How?” 

Crowley felt like he was drowning and the only thing that could save him was Zira’s hands. 

“Touch me.” 

“You mean…” 

He reached for Zira. “Please,” Crowley offered in lieu of an answer. “Please, please.” 

The rest of the night passed in a haze of kisses and pleasure and far, far too much skin. 

~~☄~~

What with one thing and another, they hadn’t really got round to making any kind of preparation for what Heaven and Hell would do to them for shutting down the Apocalypse. Agnes hadn’t had any last, opportune words for them, or anything. So when Heaven’s agents came to collect Aziraphale, they managed it quite neatly. 

The demons who came for Crowley were… actually much more polite. Which worried Crowley in ways he couldn’t put into words. They hardly did any violence to him at all, in fact, aside from the bare minimum that was necessary to get him to stop struggling to go after Zira. 

They took the side door into Headquarters, the one that went past the lake of boiling sulfur, the one that had stood there for lo these many millennia as a warning about the consequences of disrupting the order of things. 

The room that they brought him to was one of the rare ones in the part of Headquarters that was the territory of Below that had an actual window. It looked out, of course, on the burning lake. 

Beelzebub looked pleased. “Today we have not gone to battle, but it will not be a day without triumphs. Today we watch one of the mighty fall.” 

Crowley had no idea what was going to happen here. He’d had a few vague ideas, but none of them seemed to be quite right. “So, eh… do I get a trial?” 

“Oh, it’s not you who’zz being put on trial today, Crowley,” Beelzebub told him. “No, you are here to witness someone else’s punishment.” 

“What?” 

“Watch.” Beelzebub flicked a finger up. 

From Above, a figure tumbled, as if he’d been pushed out one of those great clean windows. A figure in white and cream. A familiar figure. Aziraphale, wings bound. 

Even hobbled like that, it seemed to take Zira ages to Fall. 

Beelzebub smiled. “Congratulations. You've tempted a Principality. Made him Fall. He's ours. No Angel has Fallen since the Beginning. You've redeemed yourself in the eyes of Hell, Crowley.” 

Eyes on the Angel, Crowley barely registered the words, but he still managed to murmur in answer, “Didn't do this for Hell.” 

But then why had he done it? 

Had he done this out of petty jealousy? Tried to drag Zira down to his level? 

Crowley knew he couldn’t stop this, not now that the wheels were set in motion, but he had to try, and so he spread his own great black wings - 

Stupid, hellish window glass. Only broke when you least wanted it to. He brushed aside the resulting headache to watch. 

Zira plummeted to the surface of the boiling lake. He held out a hand as if to stop the approach of the surface, but - he seemed to dissolve in it, outstretched hand to trailing feet, the lake spitting back only a small shower of sparks. 

Vanished. Aziraphale, gone. Was he - was he perhaps - too good to be a demon, too interesting to be an angel, and therefore poof - gone - in a cloud of sparks when he met the surface of the lake? 

No. He couldn’t be gone. Not completely. That wasn’t what Falling did. 

Well. Not usually. But the last thing Aziraphale was was usual. 

“You are free to go,” Beelzebub told him, and it almost sounded as if the other demon was laughing. 

~~☄~~

Crowley wandered out the side door, but he didn’t get farther than the shores of the lake, where he ended up staring sightlessly out at the roiling surface. He didn’t know where his sunglasses had gone, and he didn’t care. 

His cheeks were wet with tears now, he couldn’t see clearly at all, and yet he looked, waiting for a miracle in the place where miracles ended. 

That final swirl of sparks seemed to drift persistently in his swimming vision, as if he would be able to see nothing but the end of Aziraphale for the rest of the time that he lived. 

Then, he felt tiny, soft feet landing on his hand. A firefly, abdomen blinking its eerie golden-green. 

It was too easy to want to lash out, to punish the interruption, but the tiny thing was so beautiful. 

Then Crowley realized he was surrounded by a dizzying mass of fireflies, hundreds of insects that seemed intent on surrounding him - enveloping him - nearly embracing him. And as their wings hummed whisper-quiet in his ears, Crowley began to hope. 

Hope hurt, just now, a deep ache in his throat and a weight in his chest, but he wouldn’t have traded the sensation for anything. 

He went home, and the fireflies followed. 

~~☄~~

It was a long few days, in which Crowley had nearly managed to convince himself that he’d somehow just picked up an unusually affectionate swarm of fireflies, before Zira managed to muster himself enough to communicate. 

He spoke in a quiet, ethereal echo, as he had when he’d been discorporated days earlier. “Crowley,” was the word he first formed clearly, and then, “What am I? What's my name?” 

The wave of joy at hearing his voice again was quickly tempered by sadness. “You don't remember?" he asked. Crowley had hoped that Zira would somehow miraculously avoid this part, the part that Crowley himself relived in his nightmares. The confusion, the chaos, the hate. 

“I haven’t lost much,” Zira said in that voice, somehow sturdy although it seemed to be made up of a thousand tiny flapping wings, reassuring Crowley even now. “I remember you. I remember the world. I remember my bookshop. There's just a great bloody hole where my name should be.” 

Crowley opened his mouth to say _Azira…_ Breath stopped in his throat and at first he thought it was because the Angel’s name hurt too much to say, now. But he steadied himself and found… he physically couldn’t say the name. It’d been erased from Creation, like the rest of their names. 

“I can’t say it,” Crowley told him. “Doesn’t exist anymore.” He wanted to swear and scream. Instead he said, “We’ll fix it, though. Adam named us, in the garden. There's a new garden, and a new Adam.” 

A firefly settled on Crowley’s nose, and Crowley took that as agreement. 

~~☄~~

Tadfield was as beautiful as ever, and as twilight fell, Adam seemed to just be returning home through the gap in the hedge, calling goodbyes to his friends over his shoulder. Crowley thought that it would probably be best to catch him before he went inside, as asking a boy for advice on what to name one’s best friend who was currently a swarm of fireflies seemed like the sort of thing that would attract unwanted attention from witnesses such as parents. 

Crowley went snake for the moment, so as not to attract comment from the neighbors as he entered the yard. 

“Oh! Hullo Crowley!” Adam said. “I like that shape. You're brilliant, you know. What would a summer day in the garden be without snakes slithering through the grass?” 

In the shelter of the trees now, Crowley turned back to his human shape. “I prefer having limbs, myself,” he told Adam, “if it’s all the same to you.” 

Adam nodded agreeably, then turned to Zira. “And your friend’s got a new shape too! I've never seen fireflies. We haven't got them in Tadfield. Well, we hadn't got them, before. They're an American thing, generally, I s'pose. If there's anything that could make Tadfield better, it'd be fireflies flying around on hot summer nights.” 

“Yes, well, about that,” Zira said. “Neither of us intended this to happen, and now I can’t get back.” 

“Can’t you?” Adam said, looking him over. “Seems simple enough to me.” 

“Look, cut the crap, kid,” Crowley interrupted. “You gave him his body back once. Can you do it again?” 

Adam squinted sideways at Zira for a moment, in a motion reminiscent of Dog. “Oh!” he said at last. “You’ll have one again when you want it,” he told the swarm of fireflies. 

Crowley narrowed his eyes at the boy. “Fine, then,” he said impatiently. “What about a name?” 

“What about one?” Adam asked. 

“He needs one. His old one doesn’t exist anymore.” 

“You’re not mine, you know,” Adam told them. “Just Dog and Them are mine. They’re all I want, really. Why ask me?” 

Crowley shrugged. “The first Adam named everything. He named me.” 

“He called you Anthony J. Crowley?” Adam asked doubtfully. 

“Well... no. I called myself that.” Crowley sighed. “It’s complicated.” 

“It is,” Adam agreed. “Look. I’m just a kid, right? I look at Them and I see Them. I look at Dog and I see Dog. But your friend is more than fireflies. I can tell, but I haven’t got the rest in my head. Fireflies are just _what_ he is. I can't tell him _who_ he is. That's not mine to do.” He turned back to the house. “I’m going to be late for dinner if I don’t go, but good luck!” 

“Thank you!” Zira called, in his whispery voice. Then, once Adam had gone, he said, “Well, that wasn’t much help.” 

Crowley could almost hear him pouting. 

“So, that just means we can pick one,” Crowley said. “Any name at all. Whatever you want.” 

“I don’t _want_ a new name,” Zira said somewhat petulantly. “I may not remember it, but I know I liked it. It was comfortable.” 

Crowley tried one more time to say _Aziraphale_ , but the breath just wouldn’t cross his mouth if that was what he intended to say. “I’m sorry,” he said instead. 

And then, he stopped and thought. 

“Zira,” he said, and looked at the fireflies, a smile forming on his face. “You’re Zira. They can’t stop you being my Zira.” 

“Was that my name?” Zira asked. “It sounds… a bit right.” 

“Zira's a nickname, I called you that. You sometimes called yourself ‘A. Z. Fell.’ Z for Zira. Fell because maybe, somehow, you knew you'd fall. Like I did.” The smile turned a little twisted, a little bittersweet. 

“What's the A stand for, then?” Zira asked, and Crowley could tell it was a joke. 

He answered, “Far as I know? Just an A, really.” 

They both laughed, and as long as they could both laugh about it, then maybe it really would be okay. 

~~☄~~

Back in Crowley’s apartment again, Crowley sitting on his bed with his knees drawn up and the fireflies swarming around him, they took stock of the situation. 

“I’m sure you don’t want to hang around me for the rest of eternity just so I can do things like buy food out of restaurants and cart your books around,” Crowley said. “But I’d do it. It’s rotten, not having hands.” He looked at his own contemplatively, wiggling his fingers. 

“Would you? I’d hate to impose.” Zira paused then, and when he spoke again, it was with quiet concern. “Crowley, why wouldn’t I want to spend as much time as possible with you from here on out? We’re not on opposite sides anymore. It’s perfectly allowed. And you are, after all, my favorite person to spend time with.” 

“I am?” Crowley knew that he had been. But now? 

“Of course you are. Crowley. I do love you.” 

Crowley’s face crumpled, and he didn’t know where to look. He avoided the eyes of the fireflies currently glittering all up and down the lengths of his arms. 

“How can you still love me?” he asked. “After all of this?” 

“My dear,” Zira whispered. “How could I not?” 

“I tempted you!” Crowley howled. “I made you fall. Maybe I was jealous, maybe I wanted you to be the same as me, but you’re still better. You’re always better. My tempting you just made me worse. But, except for your punishment, your shape… it didn’t really touch you, did it?” 

“Oh,” Zira said, quiet as a breeze on a summer’s day. “Oh, Crowley. That’s… that couldn’t be farther from the truth of things.” 

“What?” Crowley asked, looking up, watching the fireflies flutter nervously around him. 

“What do you think my sin was?” Zira asked, so very soft. 

Crowley shook his head. “I don’t. Lust?” 

“It’s never that simple, as we both quite well know,” Zira said. His voice was solemn as he continued, “Some things were taken from me, when part of me... burned away on impact with the surface. But what I gained was clarity. About myself, about my sin. And it was certainly… no fault of yours.” 

“But I.” Crowley was quite lost. 

“You were vulnerable,” Zira said quietly. “Desperate. In no fit state to consent, but you were offering, for the first time, and I. Took advantage.” 

“No, but I.” Crowley’s thoughts were so jumbled, he tried to get two separate sentences out at the same time and nearly choked on them, and by the time he recovered, he’d lost them again. 

“I wanted to find the right moment,” Zira explained. “I wanted to be slow, methodical, to make certain I didn’t make any terrible blunders. But when it came down to that moment, all my delays proved to be more harm than good. I’d wanted you for so long, my dear, and I… made an error.” 

“But I’m a demon,” Crowley tried. “I’m the bad one.” 

“We both are, now,” Zira pointed out. “And all it took was one momentary misstep. It doesn’t wipe out everything else we are.” 

“I corrupted you,” Crowley whispered. 

There was a sound like a sigh, and whether or not it was meant to be a sigh or simply the result of half the fireflies settling and landing on Crowley’s face and shoulders again, or both, was unclear. 

“Sin is never the fault of the one who tempts,” Zira said. “Especially not in cases like this.” 

“I did want you,” Crowley said. “Right then, I wanted you more than anything.” 

“But if we had been thinking,” Zira said, “neither of us would have chosen quite those circumstances for our first time with each other.” 

Crowley sighed. “Spose you’re right about that,” he admitted heavily. 

“Can you ever trust me again?” Zira asked. 

“I always trust you, angel.” 

“I’m not that anymore.” Zira sounded slightly distressed. “You don’t have to call me that, not ever again.” 

“Never called you that because of _what_ you were, Zira. Only ever because of _who_ you _are_.” 

“Oh! Well.” The fireflies fluttered. “I suppose you can still call me that, if that’s how you really think of it.” 

“Good,” Crowley said, settling back against the pillows. “My angel,” he whispered to the insects that followed. 

There was a moment of content silence before Zira murmured, “Do you know what Adam meant by saying that I’ll have a body when I want one? I don’t… _not_ want a body. I am accustomed to having a body.” 

“Well, you have one. And it’s magnificent. A thousand twinkling lights.” Crowley rolled his eyes, because otherwise he wouldn’t be able to stand the saccharine sweetness of what he was about to say. “I didn’t think you could be more beautiful than how you looked before, but somehow, Zira, you manage.” 

“Well, thank you! I have to say, as swarms of insects go, it’s not bad. Not bad at all. But I would like a human body again. How did you get one? ...After?” 

Crowley sighed. “I had that moment of clarity too, you know. And afterwards I asked Her when I might be allowed to have hands again.” 

“And did She answer?” Zira asked. 

“‘You’ll have them when you want them.’ That was the last thing She said to me, after I’d fallen. The last question I asked that She answered.” Crowley was surprised that there was only a hint of bitterness in his voice. 

“How did it happen?” Zira asked. “What made you want, the way She meant it?” 

“I saw you.” 

“Oh.” 

The gasp was so soft, Crowley wasn’t sure if it was quite a word, or rather a wave of fluttering and blinking that went through the swarm. 

Crowley took several lightning bugs and cupped them in his palm. “I want the chance to say yes to you properly, Zira. It might not have been the best first time, but I sure as heaven don’t want it to be our only time.” 

“All right,” he heard, and it was a human voice, and cupped in his hands were no longer a few tiny insects. 

Instead, he held Zira’s hands. Solid and warm.


End file.
